Name: Miles Trumbull
Year: 2015

Title of Notecard: Howard Zinn Writing
Source: Zinn, Howard. Black and White. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Quote(s):

Only one fear in the American colonies was greater than the fear of black rebellion. That was the fear that whites who were unhappy with the state of things might join with blacks and overthrow the social order.

Blacks and whites were accused of conspiring together. The trial was full of high emotion and wild claims. Some people made confessions under force. Eventually two white men and two white women were executed, eighteen slaves were hanged, thirteen slaves were burned alive.

There was a chance that the two groups might work together. The whites received lighter sentences. The unequal treatment was racism, which showed itself in feelings and in actions.

Paraphrase: 

• People feared that the slaves and the servants would get to together and overthrow the more upper class people
• There was a chance that the two groups might work together
• The whites had lighter punishments than the blacks.
• The whites had less painful and torturous deaths
• Whites actually did team up with the blacks, but not enough of them.

My Ideas: When the whites and blacks did occasionally team up,  it wasn’t enough of them to make a huge impact. The rich whites were scared that the servants were unhappy with their rights, and might have joined together with the blacks and overthrow all of them. This idea would have been genius. After little uprisings, the Europeans decided to give the settlers more rights. They decided that when their service ended as servants, they would be rewarded with money, corn, and some land. This was smart because it made the white servants happier, and gave them less of a reason to rebel. This was a smart idea. Howard Zinn himself thought that would be a good idea for the blacks and whites to come together and overthrow the rich whites. If it was such a good idea why didn’t they do it? This is was probably because some blacks were scared of some of the punishments, and some whites knew that they wouldn’t be servants for life, and were just trying to do their time. Why were the whites so scared of the blacks? The whites had weaponry and knew the land better, yet were scared. I can infer they were scared, because they knew that if all the slaves and all the servants came together, the whites would be overpowered. In conclusion, the whites and blacks both decided to rebel against the rich whites, but not enough people had the bravery to do so. This lead to the poor whites getting more rights leaving the blacks with no help from them.